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February 2017 Speak Out 35
Tasmania
TAS 109
members
as at November 2016
Branch News
The Tasmanian Branch
project No Bars on Books has been
honoured with a Tasmanian Allied
Health Award in the category Into
the Spotlight: Raising the Profile and
Awareness of Allied Health.
The purpose of the project,
developed in 2015, was to supply
books to the Risdon Prison library
to enable Tasmanian prisoners
to record audio stories for their
children; and for the children to then
be able to keep the book. It was
very well supported by the community
and local media and enabled speech
pathologists to promote the importance of
language development and family connectedness.
Congratulations to all members who were involved
with this initiative and thanks to the Tasmanian
Allied Health Professional Advancement
Committee for this honour.
Tas branch representatives Linda Williams, Rosie Martin, Nicole
Hatch and Isobel Lewis.
Tasmanian Branch
Welcomes Dennis Lo
In 2017, the Tasmanian Speech Pathology Australia
Branch welcomes Dennis Lo as a member of the
executive. Dennis graduated from the Flinders
University of South Australia and is currently working
at ILC Tas as a speech pathologist. He has been
working with clients with complex communication
needs in his current and previous positions.
Dennis was previously a member of the
Communication Aids Clinical Advisory Committee
for the Medical Aids Subsidy Scheme (M.A.S.S.)
of Queensland Health. Besides augmentative and
alternative communication, his other areas of interest
include emerging technologies, environmental control
and integrated systems.
As a branch
executive, Dennis
would like to
contribute to the
development of
the profession in
Tasmania. He feels
it is an honour and
privilege to be able
to work with other
branch executives,
and looks forward
to being part of the
team. Welcome to
Dennis!
People are sometimes surprised to hear
that speech pathologists working for the
education department don’t have the
same holidays as teachers. We are often
asked what we do then when the schools
are closed for the longer summer break.
Many of us actually do take our annual leave at this time to spend
with our families but for those who don’t the time is very productive
and valued. Like all speech pathologists the administrative duties of
our role seem to be never ending and so we use this time to upload
information onto the data base, write reports, make contact with
other professionals, review policies and plan our caseloads for the
upcoming year. It is also a time to reflect on our own practise and
further develop skills and knowledge through self-directed learning
and collegial support. Some families also like to continue therapy
over the summer and so bring their children in for weekly sessions
or review assessments at our offices. For senior staff we are often
recruiting for the upcoming year and supporting newly graduated
therapists to transition into a new life of full-time work. Some focus
areas for the DoE teams this year will be our early literacy project,
expanding the use of Plain English and continued collection of
qualitative data to shape how we collaborate most effectively with
school communities.
Having worked in Education for many years I now wonder if I could
ever not think of my professional year in anything else but term-long
blocks! I truly feel that Tasmania is blessed to have a Government
school-based speech pathology service that is able to provide
regular assessment and intervention to all children enrolled in public
schools across the state. I wish all our DoE speech pathologists a
great 2017!
Linda Williams
Tasmanian Allied Health Awards 2016
Where do the DoE
speechies go?